‘Keels?’
Rach’s voice brought Keeley back to. ‘Oh, Rach, I—’
‘Has he not turned up?’ Rach snapped.
‘I…’ Keeley checked her watch. She hadn’t really noticed how fast the minutes were ticking by. 11.30 a.m. For whatever reason, Ethan wasn’t coming.
‘Come on,’ Rach said. Once she had coordinated shopping bags, she put an arm around Keeley’s shoulders. ‘Let’s go in here and have a cake or something.’
‘I… can’t eat anything,’ Keeley said, still feeling a little wobbly on her feet.
‘Coffee then and you can watch me eat something.’
A familiar bark halted their advance into the café and before Keeley could move, Bo-Bo was there, up on his hind legs and leaping to lick her face.
‘Bo-Bo! Down!’
‘Bloody dog!’ Rach remarked. ‘It needs to learn a little social distancing.’
Keeley looked to Jeanne who was wearing a coat a few sizes too big for her with the buttons done up wrong. It was like she might have put it on in a hurry.
‘Hi,’ Jeanne said, pulling Bo-Bo’s lead a little tighter in her fist.
‘Hi,’ Keeley greeted, her voice almost failing her. ‘Is Ethan OK? Is something wrong?’
Jeanne shook her head. ‘He is not coming. But, I am positive… given a little time he will…’ She didn’t finish the sentence.
Keeley didn’t understand. Ethan had been so desperate to speak to her last night. And this morning, in reply to her message, he’d said he would be here. Why wasn’t he here now when she so desperately needed to tell him her truth?
‘Well, where is he?’ Rach demanded to know. ‘Because standing someone up isn’t cool.’
Jeanne pulled Bo-Bo to heel again and the mutt sat down next to her. ‘He knows,’ the girl said softly. ‘About… your connection to… his best friend. To Ferne.’
Keeley crumpled, her fingers finding Rach’s bag-filled arm and her body listing. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. She wanted to be the one to tell him. How did he know? Who had told him before she could? Surely not Silvie…
‘How does he know?’ Rach asked the question, gathering Keeley close to her and letting the bags drop to the floor. ‘It’s OK,’ she whispered to Keeley. ‘It’s going to be OK.’
‘Someone called… Louis?’ Jeanne said. ‘I heard it all… from the top of the staircase and, well…’ She sniffed, then wiped at her nose with her sleeve. ‘So, I came because I wanted you to know that… I am going to look after him, the way he has looked after me and… when he has had time to think… he will want to see you. I know he will.’
Keeley couldn’t concentrate on what Jeanne was saying to her, all she could feel was the bottom falling out of her world again. Erica. Ethan. Everything. She felt her body slide down to the floor.
Sixty-Four
L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Tour Eiffel, Paris
Five days later
‘Antoine,’ Rach purred. ‘Do you have any more of those sugar-coated sweeties that were on your desk?’
‘Are they for the general festive decoration? Or are they for your own consumption?’ Antoine asked.
Keeley looked up from her clipboard and focused on her best friend leaning across the desk and displaying more than the probably accepted level of cleavage for the cold weather. She shook her head at the conversation, but all the while she was smiling. Rach’s budding relationship with their concierge was a bright spot in an otherwise turbulent few days. Having been picked up off the floor inside Passage Jouffroy, Keeley had spent the first twelve hours or so bundled up in bed only sitting up to take the sips of water Rach offered at regular intervals or actually getting out from under the covers to visit the toilet. Then, the following day, the phone call had come, Nurse Walters informing her that Erica had passed away. It had hurt. So much. Even though she had known it was coming. Through Keeley’s fresh tears, the nurse had assured her it had been as peaceful as it could have been and that someone had been with Erica, holding her hand. Even the slightly gruff health care worker who witnessed death on a daily basis had sounded emotional. After that phone call she remembered vividly the promise she had made Erica. All in. Every time. That was a mantra for life and not reliant on anyone else’s thoughts and feelings on the subject. It was then she had finally got out of bed. She’d washed and dressed and she’d begun a new day here in Paris with a list of things she wanted to do.
And during the days that followed she had got Silvie’s go ahead to get stuck into a transformation of the hotels. Silvie had seen how areas at Opera had altered and what a difference it was making to the overall ambience of the place. Plus, the woman had also eaten some of the new simplified yet flavourful dishes on the menu and agreed they were to be immediately introduced. The jury was still out on the rabbits…
From the moment Keeley had taken that après-meltdown shower and no dye had leaked from her hair she had told herself this trip could still be all she wanted it to be and more. She didn’t regret coming to Paris. She didn’t regret meeting Silvie, or travelling around the gorgeous city, or learning more about Ferne. Whether she was meant to be here for Silvie, for herself, for Erica, or maybe even for Bea, it had been the right decision to come, despite the broken heart she was nursing. Because although her heart was crushed and possibly would never be fully mended, so much of the rest of her had started to heal.
‘Well,’ Rach said, her fingers prowling across the desk towards the slimline tie of the beaming concierge, ‘my clever friend, Keeley, has sourced some lovely hand-painted wooden Christmas eggs on strings that we can fill with sweets for the tree.’
‘As long as the sweets are allergen-free,’ Keeley reminded, ticking an earlier completed task off her list.
‘These,’ Antoine said, producing the bowl from underneath his workstation. ‘Are almond nuts.’
‘Nuts,’ Rach said long and slow.
Keeley shook her head again. ‘I’m trying to get a hotel ready for Christmas over here.’
She swallowed, realising what she had just said. What was it she was doing exactly? Taking a job that had vaguely been offered her before the person that offered it had realised she had been holding back quite an important piece of her life from him. And neither of them had known quite how intertwined that had all been. Put simply, she was keeping busy. And she hoped she was doing good. Because Ethan had gone to ground. Well, not exactly gone to ground, Jeanne and Noel – who was far more Ethan’s assistant than he was tour guide she had discovered – were reporting on the movements they were observing. Apparently, Ethan slept in his bed, but left early in the morning for who-knew-where. All Jeanne knew was that he left food for her but that there was no evidence he was eating anything himself. He made the briefest of appearances at the hotel in the Opera District, but only to delegate to his staff or, if the particular delegation was above their paygrade then he was passing the responsibility to Louis. Jeanne also said there were still no other festive decorations in the apartment except the paper, cardboard and tin foil chains she had made.